Lost and Found

As most parents, I imagine, on the day after one of the most horrific tragedies in this nation's history, I can't stop thinking about my kids and how grateful I am to have them. I've agonized through the thoughts of what it would be like to lose one of them, and found solace in thoughts of the many things they do that make me laugh, and make me crazy, and make me so appreciative to be a mom. As I was contemplating all the blessings that greet me every day as the mother of a Kindergartner I kept coming back to one thing that has become her signature lately and how deeply painful it would be to miss this episode we play over and over in our house...the one regarding her shoes.

"Mommy! I can't find my other shoe! Where is it?" 

"I'm not sure, Honey, but we have to leave or we're gonna be late! Where did you leave it? 

"I remember having it in the playroom. Maybe in there?"

"Well, let's go look."

My beloved daughter has this amazing ability to lose her shoes, almost always when we're fixing to head out of the house. 99% of the time when we're in a hurry. Often she has one shoe in hand, but the other is nowhere to be found. More often still, she comes to me sheepishly with a pair of shoes that does not remotely go with what she is wearing because they are the only ones she could find. Most of the time a shoe can be found hidden under a couch or at the bottom of a toy bin, covered over by a days worth of Barbies and Legos. Rarely, and I mean RARELY, does she make it to the car with both feet adorned with the appropriate pair and we drive off into the sunset to wherever it was we were going. 

As we finally drive away, out comes the same, tired, broken-record lecture..."It does us no good to know the shoes are somewhere in the house if we can't find them and put them on...blah, blah, blah"

　

It took my breath away while I sat here this morning realizing how closely this little scenario relates to us as a nation relating to God. Here we sit... heartbroken, frightened, distraught, physically ill over the course of events we have watched unfold before our eyes, while a resonating, "Where is God?" plays over and over through people we see in the news, through newspaper headlines, and in our own minds.

Twenty children violently murdered along with six adults who loved them. For those who survived, lives forever tarnished by the stealing away of innocence, replaced by sights and sounds that no one should ever have to endure. Families in anguish. A community with the wind utterly knocked out of them. A nation in mourning. One man's sinful actions...Without a doubt it was the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst of days.

As I'm writing this, I received a ping on my phone...a FOX News message stating that the names of the victims have been released. I raced to find them because deep within me I know it is important to at least know the names of these precious people that have become our focus of prayer and petition. Instead, I found headline after headline that paints such a clear picture:

　

WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY STUDENT JUMPS FROM DORM WINDOW

GUNMAN WOUNDS 3 AT ALABAMA HOSPITAL BEFORE BEING FATALLY SHOT

MEMPHIS POLICE OFFICER KILLED WHILE SERVING DRUG WARRANT IS MOTHER OF FOUR

FORT HOOD SOLDIER KILLED IN SHOOTOUT WITH MILITARY POLICE

MURDER SUICIDE SHOOTING AT LAS VEGAS HOTEL-CASINO LEAVES TWO DEAD

and finally...

OFFICIALS RELEASE IDS OF 26 VICTIMS KILLED WHEN A GUNMAN OPENED FIRE INSIDE A CONNECTICUT SCHOOL

　

Where is God?? But maybe the better question is...Where have we left Him?

　

I can’t help thinking that as a nation we have abandoned God to the bottom bins of our lives, covered over by "stuff" of little importance. Meanwhile, we desperately search and dig through, trying to find Him when at last we recognize that we need Him and want Him. If we would keep God in His rightful place in our lives..in this world...would we still be enduring these horrific tragedies time and time again? It seems clear to me that the further we push Him out of our space, the more willingly He leaves it, and the more broken and lost our space becomes.

And yet, when all seems hopeless, there is hope. The mind-blowing, life-altering thing about God’s unconditional love is that we can never get so far from Him that He stops loving us. He endures our rejection time and time again and, with patience, He loves us and He awaits our return...

Where do we begin praying over this tragedy? The families, the survivors at Sandy Hook, the community of Newtown, our nation? As for me, I will be praying for all of these, and for myself...that of everyone I know, I'll be the first to wholeheartedly turn and seek God. And I'll pray that the desire for God will burn like a wildfire through this nation, bringing us to our knees in repentance and putting us upright again to continue on in the world as God intended it to be.

"Return to me, and I will return to you." Zechariah 1:3